Hickory/Osage/Rawhide Backed Osage Board Bow #1

Hickory/Osage/Rawhide Backed Osage Board Bow #1

Final 51#@28″

This one has been a real bugger

I acquired several chunks of osage through some horse trading. A pretty rare site around these parts (the osage, not the horses). 

The smaller chunk should be the easiest to start with.
This piece is 71″ long, just under 1 1/2″ wide and 5/8″-9/16″ (9/16″ on one end). The black line shows the grain. I snapped a center line and measure both ways to get an even board.
I’d like to wind up with a 50#-55# flat bow if possible

I have some hickory staves and I thought I could slice a slice off one without sacrificing the whole stave for a back. 

But this project has been a bit of a bugger I started by backing it with a piece of 1/8″ Hickory. About half way through tillering, 

I got it almost tillered and a bad spot on one end of the hickory started splitting. I set it off to the side for a couple days until some motivation struck. I ground the hickory back to the handle from the bad end and added a long overlap splice at the handle with a new backing.

I also flipped the tips (just because I’ve not done it before)

I built up the handle with leather as the picture show.

After about 300-350 arrows through it wouldn’t you know, another split in the Hickory back. So once again I ground the hickory back to the handle from the bad end and added a long overlap splice at the handle with a new backing. But this time I used a piece of 1/8″ osage. It was the best 1/8″ piece I had.

I also decided to add some recurves. I used dry heat and made a very slight recurve on each end. 

I then decided to add a rawhide backing to the hickory backing. I figured this would hide the two different color backings and add some insurance for further breakage. Plus I’m liking the stained rawhide look.